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Outcry, veterans’ support make Ottawa fast-track visa for Afghan interpreter

Ottawa agreed to quickly approve a visa for Sharifi, praised by Canadian troops as a brave comrade who saved lives during combat in the Taliban heartland, after Toronto lawyer Lorne Waldman withdrew a Federal Court case.

For months the Canadian government refused to process a visa for Sayed Shah Sharifi, an Afghan interpreter who, along with others, faces threats from the Taliban because he helped Canadian troops on battlefields there.

For months, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney bucked mounting public pressure and refused to rescue Sharifi from Kandahar after Canadian officials decided his claims that the Taliban would kill him for aiding their enemies weren’t credible.

The breakthrough came after an outcry from Toronto Star readers and Canadian veterans of the Afghan war moved Prime Minister Stephen Harper last month to force Kenney to reconsider Sharifi and scores of other rejected Afghans.

Waldman said Friday he is confident, following assurances from the justice department, that Sharifi has won his long fight with the Harper government.

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“He’s going to be getting a visa fairly soon. I would say by the summer,” Waldman said.

“In the case of Sayed, I’m comfortable because we have a written statement from them saying he meets the requirements for processing.”

Sharifi must still pass medical, criminal background and security checks required of all immigrants to Canada, but Waldman doesn’t expect any problems.

In September 2009, Kenney announced a special program to grant visas to Afghans “who face exceptional risk or who have suffered serious injury as a result of their work for the Canadian government in Kandahar province.”

In documents filed with the Federal Court, Waldman argued that the program was fatally flawed from the start because Kenney failed to delegate legal authority to Canadian officials on committees deciding the visa cases.

Committee members included Canadian diplomats and military officers in Afghanistan.

“Normally, an immigration officer has to make the final immigration decision,” Waldman said.

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“In this case, there doesn’t seem to have been any final input from any immigration official who has the authority to make the decision. The committee interviewed (Sharifi), and said he didn’t qualify, and that was where the case ended.”

Kenney’s spokesman, Candice Malcolm, did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

Waldman withdrew the Federal Court suit last month after the justice department offered to settle.

He suspects government lawyers realized the program wouldn’t survive a court battle, and that Harper wanted to quell anger building in the defence department and among ordinary Canadians over shoddy treatment of Afghan allies.

In a rare move, a soldier still in the ranks, Corporal Timothy Laidler, provided evidence against the government in a sworn Federal Court affidavit supporting Sharifi.

Waldman doubts it could have happened without a green light from Laidler’s military superiors.

Laidler, who served in Kandahar from January to September 2008, said he lobbied for a program to bring Afghan allies to Canada after “my interpreters alerted me to the injustice that Canada did not have an immigration policy for its interpreters.”

The U.S., United Kingdom and Australia were all working to bring endangered Afghans to safety before Canada followed suit, the corporal said in his affidavit.

Laidler, a Canadian soldier since 2002, said an older Afghan interpreter told him that even the widely-hated Soviet troops brought Afghan interpreters with them in retreat in 1989 “because Afghanistan was no longer safe for them.”

Laidler, still a member of the Canadian Forces, is studying for a Master’s degree in counseling psychology at the University of British Columbia.

Afghan interpreters Laidler worked with in Kandahar “were at extreme risk of being identified and would recount stories of nightly threats they received from the Taliban,” he said.

“These threats came most commonly via ‘night letter’ or threatening phone calls. On numerous occasions, we passed these reports on to Canadian intelligence units to follow up on,” Laidler said in his affidavit.

“The intelligence units would conduct interviews with our interpreters to gain tactical information, but could not provide protection to these locally hired employees of the Canadian government in Kandahar City.”

Sharifi worked as an interpreter for Canadian forces in several districts of Kandahar province, long a Taliban stronghold, from November 2007 to March 2010. He came under fire numerous times with the troops he served.

His visa application was supported by letters from several Canadian military officers, who wrote in praise of Sharifi’s bravery and integrity, and confirmed he had received death threats from the Taliban.

Sharifi said in a front page Toronto Star story in July that he and other former interpreters were frustrated, and in danger, because of lengthy delays in Kenney’s program.

Two out of three Afghans who applied were rejected.

Sharifi submitted his first visa application in August 2010. He was turned down in December of that year. Sharifi was told he hadn’t provided enough details to back up claims that his life was at risk in Kandahar.

At the time, Taliban death squads were regularly murdering Afghans linked to the government, or its foreign allies. Despite security gains, the assassins are still killing in Kandahar today.

Sharifi reapplied on January 29, 2011. Five months later, on May 28, the Joint Referral Committee of Canadian officials handling special visa applications informed Sharifi that it found “merit in his case,” according to the Federal Court filing.

The committee “also sought additional information in support of his application.”

Just days after the first Toronto Star story was published, Sharifi received good news.

The International Organization for Migration, the immigration department’s middleman in Kandahar, told Sharifi to go for medical and police checks, normally the last step for applicants who have tentative approval for a visa.

But on July 21, he was called in for a four-hour interview by three Canadian officials, who grilled Sharifi with questions such as how he felt about the recent death of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Sharifi received another letter from the Joint Referral Committee on November 1, which tersely declared him “ineligible” for a visa, without any explanation.

It was signed by Canadian Army Colonel J.P. Davis, a former special forces commander in Afghanistan, and Shelley Whiting, Canada’s deputy ambassador in Kabul, on October 5, 2011.

“According to them, he didn’t meet the requirements in the special program for interpreters because he wasn’t able to show he had an individualized, personalized risk,” Waldman said.

“We went to court to show that finding was ridiculous.”

Under the current review of rejected cases, Sharifi and dozens of other Afghans don’t have to prove they are personally threatened to get a visa, Waldman said.

They are being handled in a long-established humanitarian category that Kenney could have used to provide the Afghans shelter in Canada months ago, the lawyer added.

“The minister could have directed that a visa be issued at any time and he didn’t,” Waldman said. “Instead of looking at the file carefully, he chose to defend the process.

“It’s what they tend to be doing quite often: Instead of looking at the case on an objective basis, they attack the messenger. In this case, that was Sayed, who exposed that this process wasn’t being administered properly.”

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